


It’s Going to Be Okay

by braiawrites



Category: The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: Also Balekin and Queen Orlagh are mentioned, Alternate Ending, Angst, Blood, Blood and Injury, Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Murder, Injury, Jude Duarte/Cardan Greenbriar Fluff, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Oak kind of plays a big role but isn't actually in it, POV Cardan Greenbriar, POV Jude Duarte, Panic Attacks, Rewrite, Soft Cardan Greenbriar, Vivi and Taryn mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:09:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28555917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/braiawrites/pseuds/braiawrites
Summary: Rewrite/alternate ending of The Wicked King chapter 21. Prior to the start of Taryn's wedding, Jude panics thinking of what might happen if anything goes wrong. Cardan comforts her.
Relationships: Jude Duarte/Cardan Greenbriar
Comments: 8
Kudos: 79





	It’s Going to Be Okay

**Author's Note:**

> Before you read, please note that the parts in bold are direct quotes from the book.  
> As mentioned in the summary, this is a rewrite. It takes place at Taryn and Locke’s wedding and I pick up after Jude and Oak have climbed through a window to meet with the Bomb inside. After conferring quickly, the Bomb takes Oak to find Oriana, but just before they leave, she notices Jude’s wounded leg and says she has something to help…

**With that, she tosses me something. I catch it without knowing what it is, and then turn it over in my hand. A pot of ointment. I look back up to thank her, but she’s already gone.**

I perch on the window ledge and hike my dress up, tucking it beneath me to keep it out of the way. **Unstoppering the little pot, I breathe in the scent of strong herbs.** The greenish paste inside makes my fingertips tingle where it makes contact, and I am careful not to touch it more than is necessary as I apply it to my wound, wincing at the slight pressure. The cream is cold against my inflamed skin. It feels good.

Once I’ve thoroughly absorbed the stuff, I restopper the pot and shove it in my pocket. I’m reluctant to get up, even though my leg, while still not great, feels scores better than it did. This may be the only time I have alone before everything truly starts.

If anything goes wrong today… I try to shove the idea of Oak in Orlagh and Balekin’s clutches out of my head. It’s going to be fine. I have to believe that.

I study the nasty, multicoloured bruises and messy stitches on my leg. Scabs have crawled over the opening of the wound, but a drop of blood has formed along the edge where it must have been stretched a little too much. Climbing through the window was too strenuous a task apparently.

Not wanting to get blood on Oriana’s dress I find a tablecloth in a dresser drawer and slice off a concealed strip of it. I heave myself back onto the window ledge because it is the only possible seat in this tiny room—unless I feel like sitting on the floor, but if I do that I’m afraid my leg, stiff as it is, won’t allow me to get back up.

I wrap the fabric around the wound and tie it off. It’s not great, but it’s what I have.

My mind flashes unprompted to the idea of Oak with an arrow shaft protruding from his little thigh, fear and pain in his eyes.

 _No_. That won’t happen. I try to shove the image away, but it persists: tiny Oak, injured and unable to fight back as the Undersea makes its move. Oak, terrified as the sea rises to swallow him. As nixies or sprites or mermaids drag him down to the unknown depths. Oak, with the Crown of Elfhame in his clawed hands, held at sword point as he is made to place it atop the head of the murderous ex-prince.

Some part of me realises that to crown Balekin they must first dispose of Cardan, and then his body is added to the scene in my mind, limp and vacant-eyed at the foot of the throne, fallen asleep in a puddle of his own blood.

My breath is coming faster and I can’t stop as my imagination conjures more and more scenarios of Oak and Cardan, of Taryn and Vivi, each more horrific than the last. Every one a glimpse of what the future might hold should I fail at keeping Oak safe today. I clasp my hands against my ears, as though that will help, shaking my head.

 _No. No no no_. “No!” My voice is strangled and I’m not sure when I stopped thinking the word and started saying it. “No no no,” I chant the word like a mantra, an empty promise. None of that will happen, I tell myself. I won’t let it.

I have never been more aware of my ability to lie.

My hands are trembling, my whole body shaking. There’s a pit in my stomach, twisting itself in knots, and my chest feels too tight. I don’t know what is happening to me. I don’t know how to stop it.

Instead I cry.

The tears burn as they course down my cheeks. Are cold as they fall against the skin of my legs. I haven’t allowed myself to cry where someone might notice me in years—maybe ever.

I am not weak, I tell myself, but I am not sure it’s true. I certainly don’t feel strong right now.

“The Queen of Mirth, my high and mighty seneschal, crying?”

My head snaps up at the sound of Cardan’s voice and I angrily dash the tears from my eyes, struggling to catch my breath. Of all the people who could have walked in on me at this moment, of course it had to be him.

He is leaning against the dark wood of the door frame, arms crossed and dark gaze fixed on me, the Crown of Elfhame sitting askew atop his hair. His eyebrows draw together at the sight of my red-rimmed eyes and, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that was concern flashing across his face. He quickly buries it.

“What do you want,” I snap, the words coming out harsher than I’d intended.

Cardan is used to my acidity, however, and his only response is to tip his head languidly to one side. “Ah, she bites.”

“Not in the mood, Cardan,” I hiss, swiping my watering eyes again. I don’t think I have it in me to put up with his taunting, nor the roiling mass of emotions he makes me feel. Not right now.

He purses his lips, pushing off the door and taking a step into the room. A step toward me. He studies my tearstained face. “Did… something happen?”

I almost flinch at the hesitancy in his words, though I’m not sure why. Or maybe it was the question itself, or the way his black eyes seemed to bore into my very soul. “No. Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. Where are your guards?” My stupid, traitorous tongue speaks of its own accord. I almost want to laugh at how utterly ridiculous it is, the way Cardan’s mere presence makes me want to tell him everything. But the taste of my tears is still fresh on my lips and I don’t have it in me to laugh, either.

Cardan kicks the door closed as he comes farther into the room. “Jude…” My name in his voice is soft, feather light and yet holding all the weight of a storm. I want to respond with something sharp, something cutting, but I can’t think past the twisting in my gut.

Apparently, Cardan takes this silence as an invitation, because he steps closer still. The room is not large by any means, and he’s crossed it with a few steps, his long legs cutting the distance in half. He stops with a mere two paces between us. I stand, pushing the fabric of Oriana’s silver dress down my thigh.

He nods at the now-concealed wound. “What’d you do?”

I seethe at his insinuation that I would do this to myself. I hold my chin high, clenching my hands around fistfuls of skirt. “I was attacked.”

“By whom?”

“I don’t know. Seven riders. They surrounded me.”

Cardan’s brows lift. “Maybe you need the guards more than me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I snap, “you’re the _High King_.”

Cardan snorts, seemingly amused. “We both know I’m just a figurehead.”

“Whatever. You couldn’t have handled yourself if it had happened to you.”

“Yes, because obviously you did so well.”

I flinch. “I survived, didn’t I?”

Cardan voices what I’ve been trying to ignore: “And if you hadn’t?”

Silence stretches between us. “Well, you’d like that, wouldn’t you,” I remark at last, sarcasm thick on my tongue. Cardan regards me steadily and I fight the urge to squirm under his gaze. A long moment passes, before I say, “I did. I did survive, so it doesn’t matter. It’s in the past.” I try to sound flippant, to toss my words out as though they mean little, the way he so often does, but my voice catches slightly, betraying the fear I felt in those moments.

Cardan holds my stare, and maybe it’s because I’m already a wreck of emotions, maybe it’s because I am hurting too much to defer to my better judgement, but when he opens his arms in a very un-Cardan-like invitation, I find myself stepping forward and falling against him, clinging to his silken doublet like the fool I fear I am. He holds me tight to his chest, long fingers trailing up and down my back, chin resting atop my hair, and it feels so damn good to be wrapped up in someone else’s arms that I have to bite down on a strangled sob.

I can’t remember the last time I hugged anyone, besides maybe Taryn, and I suppose that’s making me emotional all over again. I can feel the tears prickling in the corners of my eyes, so I bury my face against him and squeeze them shut. I am not going to cry again. I am not.

We stand like that for a small eternity, until Cardan’s hands move to slide up my arms, grasp my shoulders, and he pulls back a little. “Jude,” he whispers. “Jude, look at me.”

I feel like a child as I shake my head, face still pressed into the warmth of him, arms clinging to his torso.

“Jude,” he says again. There is an unmistakable tone of command in his voice, however gentle, and this time I look up. My vision is blurry, a little, with the tears that want to be shed, but I focus on his face. In this moment, it is not cruel in its beauty, and I wonder if I will ever see him like this again. So open in his care for me. So clearly concerned for my well-being. So not like him.

His next words hit me like a knife in the heart, stabbing straight to my core and cleaving me open: “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

I must look absolutely stricken, because he tries to gathers me back into himself, and I can hear the hitch in his breath. I shake my head, pulling away.

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Because I am the High King and I decree it will be so.” He gives a careless, one-shouldered shrug, waving a bejewelled hand as though that’s that.

“That’s stupid,” I inform him, “and you know it.”

He looks to the heavens and sighs exasperatedly before levelling those dark eyes at me and catching hold of my hands.

“Jude Duarte,” he says, his fingers tracing shapes and patterns along the delicate skin on my wrists. “I know, because bound or not, I am the High King, and I will do everything in my power to keep my lands and my people safe. And more than any of that, I know because the most formidable mind in all of Faerie is on my side, and I trust that you will find a way.”

I swallow hard and struggle to breathe past the lump in my throat. He can’t lie. He can’t lie, I remind myself, so he must at least believe it himself. I meet his gaze and read the absolute honesty there, the open, guileless set of his visage.

I nod. “Okay.”


End file.
